Ed Notes Online: New Teacher Underground

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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Today: New Teacher Underground Discusses UNIONS! 5 PM

I was really hoping to make this today but it is the last day with our 20 year old cat who while still a fighter seems to be suffering too much. But if you can make it check it out. Gotham funder Ken Hirsh, my favorite hedge funder, said he will stop by. Sorry I'll miss him because we have had some great conversations.

I posted this on the "Ruben Brosbe is leaving" thread at Gotham, urging him to attend this so he can go off to Harvard with a little perspective. Go add your 2 cents.

The New Teacher Underground

5-7pm Thursdays all summer long (Extended time to 8 pm for continued conversation)
Lolita Bar, 266 Broome Street-- Find us downstairs
B/D to Grand, F to Delancey, J/M/Z to Essex

The New Teacher Underground is a social space for new and alternatively certified te

achers to find support and dissect the current realities of education in NYC. Teachers of any experience level will be able to engage with the discussion and help contribute to the development of our thinking, and you are welcome whether you have attended every week or have yet to join us. So far this summer we have had four great conversations on topics such as privilege and power, the history and structure of the NYC public schools, the nature of alternative certification programs, mayoral control and high stakes testing, etc. These sessions have been both socially and intellectually engaging; coming together with newer teachers to strengthen our understanding of education in New York City has been rewarding.

This coming Thursday our topic is Your Union and Social Justice Unionism where we will have an opportunity to engage with questions like, What do teacher protections like tenure and contracts mean for us and for our students? How does the UFT organize us and what more should it do? We will be joined by three experienced and knowledgeable individuals who will share their thinking and help facilitate our conversation. Peter Lamphere, chapter leader and member of the Grassroots Education Movement, will provide some context for why teacher protections are important and can share his knowledge about the history of the UFT and its relation to labor movements in this country. Sam Coleman, NYCoRE member and Fight Back Friday organizer, will help us think about how our union could be functioning differently. Natalie Havlin, organizer with Teachers Unite, will help lead us in an activity where we envision the type of effective collective actions in which teachers could be engaging. We will also have resources for teachers in charter schools who may be interested in thinking about their relationship to the teachers unions. And we will be sure to have plenty of time for discussion, with extended time until 8pm upstairs for those who want to keep the conversation going.

We will have a few copies of the great article "Who's Bashing Teachers and Public Schools and What Can We Do About It?"originally published in Rethinking Schools, but if you'd like to read it before the session on Thursday it may include some useful ideas to bring to the conversation. We hope you will join us!

Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested, and feel free to contact us at newteacherunderground@gmail.com or check us out on facebook or at our blog on the NYCoRE website.

The New Teacher Underground5-7pm Thursdays all summer long (Extended time to 8 pm for continued conversation)
Lolita Bar, 266 Broome Street-- Find us downstairs
B/D to Grand, F to Delancey, J/M/Z to EssexJuly 14th: What it Means to be a Teacher in New York City Right Now
Developing a people’s history of the New York City public schools
July 21st: Privilege, Power and Public Schools
Unpacking the concept of the “achievement gap” by addressing privilege and power in our school system and in our classrooms
July 28th: The Meaning of Alternative Certification
What are the histories of Teach for America and the New York City Teaching Fellows programs? What role do they play in today’s education climate?
August 4th: Welcome to Teaching
Understanding mayoral control, high-stakes testing, privatization and other top-down policies that impact our classrooms
August 11th: Your Union and Social Justice Unionism
What do teacher protections like tenure and contracts mean for us and for our students? How does the UFT organize us and what more should it do?
August 18th: The so-called “No Excuses” Classroom
…and other educational jargon in your teacher training reading material. What do “accountability” and “data” really mean to our work?
August 25th: Anti-Racist Classrooms & Anti-Racist Curriculum
How to circumvent institutional racism in schools and develop culturally relevant curriculum that connects students to the world outside the classroom
September 1st: First Days…
How can you really prepare? What is most important? What strengths will you bring to the classroom? What is your teaching core?

Monday, July 11, 2011

The Antidote to Ed Deform: New Teacher Underground - CORRECT LOCATION

CORRECT LOCATION:

AN INCORRECT LOCATION HAS BEEN FOUND CIRCULATING ON SEVERAL LISTS FOR OVER 30 DAYS. THE SESSIONS BEGIN TOMORROW. PLEASE HELP SPREAD WORD.

5:00-7:00pm Thursdays starting July 14 at
Lolita Bar, 266 Broome Street at Allen St., one block south of Delancey
B/D to Grand, F to Delancey, J/M/Z to Essex; map <http://ow.ly/5D79e >
(There is no such bar on Grand St.)

Some of the organizers of this summer weekly series have been working with us and I feel honored to have been asked to assist with some video interviews and even speak at one of the events. I met with one of the oganizers last week and we talked about doing a short film piece. I will be at Lolita Bar this Thursday at 5pm for the first session. You can email them at: newteacherunderground@gmail.com.

July 14th: What it Means to be a Teacher in New York City Right Now
Developing a people’s history of the New York City public schools

New Teacher Underground (from NYCORE web site)

Sponsored by the new teacher/alt cert action group of NYCoRE, the New Teacher Underground is a social space for new and alternatively certified teachers to find support and dissect the current realities of education in New York City.

We will be meeting every Thursday all summer long. While we hope to target the needs of newer teachers, with a particular focus on those in alternative certification programs, all are welcome to join us.

5:00-7:00pm Thursdays starting July 14 at
Lolita Bar, 266 Broome Street at Allen St., one block south of Delancey
B/D to Grand, F to Delancey, J/M/Z to Essex; map <http://ow.ly/5D79e

Please forward this email to anyone who might be interested, and feel free to contact us at newteacherunderground@gmail.com.

July 14th: What it Means to be a Teacher in New York City Right Now
Developing a people’s history of the New York City public schools

July 21st: Privilege, Power and Public Schools
Unpacking the concept of the “achievement gap” by addressing privilege and power in our school system and in our classrooms
July 28th: The Meaning of Alternative Certification
What are the histories of Teach for America and the New York City Teaching Fellows programs? What role do they play in today’s education climate?
August 4th: Welcome to Teaching
Understanding mayoral control, high-stakes testing, privatization and other top-down policies that impact our classrooms
August 11th: Your Union and Social Justice Unionism
What do teacher protections like tenure and contracts mean for us and for our students? How does the UFT organize us and what more should it do?
August 18th: The so-called “No Excuses” Classroom
…and other educational jargon in your teacher training reading material. What do “accountability” and “data” really mean to our work?
August 25th: Anti-Racist Classrooms & Anti-Racist Curriculum
How to circumvent institutional racism in schools and develop culturally relevant curriculum that connects students to the world outside the classroom
September 1st: First Days…
How can you really prepare? What is most important? What strengths will you bring to the classroom? What is your teaching core?

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"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Monday, July 11, 2011

CORRECT LOCATION:

July 14th: What it Means to be a Teacher in New York City Right Now Developing a people’s history of the New York City public schools

5:00-7:00pm Thursdays starting July 14 at Lolita Bar, 266 Broome Street at Allen St., one block south of Delancey B/D to Grand, F to Delancey, J/M/Z to Essex; map <http://ow.ly/5D79e

July 14th: What it Means to be a Teacher in New York City Right Now
Developing a people’s history of the New York City public schools

5:00-7:00pm Thursdays starting July 14 at
Lolita Bar, 266 Broome Street at Allen St., one block south of Delancey
B/D to Grand, F to Delancey, J/M/Z to Essex; map <http://ow.ly/5D79e